Pop culture workers spend countless hours getting to know the stories, worlds, and characters of our favorite media. We learn their energies so well that we can incorporate them into our magick with ease. Our fandoms become a part of the very fabric of our magickal practice. Sometimes, as we’re merrily working away, the creators dare to fundamentally change our favorite bits of pop culture in a way that no longer works for us. What do you do when good fiction goes bad?

There are benefits and risks in working with living fiction: stories that are still unfolding in their medium. The primary benefit to working with living fiction is the liveliness of its energy. A story that is still unfolding has momentum and power that static fiction just can’t match. If the fiction is popular, think the current Marvel movies or Star Wars, then you have not only the energies of the stories themselves but also the popular momentum generated by advertising, merchandising, fan buzz, etc. Living media is huge part of popular culture and pop culture workers can use all of that madness to their advantage. The biggest risk with living media is that its energies can change swiftly and profoundly: characters can reveal hidden details that make them something utterly different, beloved characters can suddenly die, mysterious siblings can appear from the ether (I’m looking at you Buffy and Sherlock), plots can suddenly diverge in ways wholly inconsistent with everything you loved about the media in the first place, the creator has just been revealed as a horrible person in a way that taints their creations...the list can go on forever. Fear not, all of this can be addressed.

Your favorite fiction has just taken a hard left turn off a cliff, what do you do? Embrace version control - the concept of working with a specific version of media. Lots of amazing media comes in different versions. For example, Superman exists in multiple comics, movies, television, books, etc., all of which portray a different version of the character and the universe he inhabits. If you want to do pop culture magick with Superman the first thing you need to decide is which version of him you want to work with. (See Who's Your Doctor for more) This same concept applies when a character, story, or world you’re working with changes. You can choose to work with select portions of your pop culture media. Only like a character in seasons 2-4 of a show? Only work with that version of the character. Want to pretend that a book series ended at book five? Go for it. It’s your magick and you get to choose what you work with.

Version control can most easily be executed through a statement of intent. It’s always a good practice to have a firm statement of intent before doing magick; to say what you’re going to do, why, and exactly how. During a statement of intent you can specify the precise version of pop culture energy you’re calling upon. For example, in casting a time management spell I might call on Hermione Granger, specifically from book three of Harry Potter. In book three Hermione had a time turner to help her deal with her overloaded schedule and was able to accomplish all of her goals while overcoming many challenges. This particular brand of time management skill isn’t referred to in any other book, so being specific about which version of Hermione, with which particular skill set, would be beneficial to the spell. Similarly, if one were to call on Black Widow for personal strength and maneuverability it might be beneficial to specify that you want to work with the kickass version from The Winter Soldier rather than the damsel in distress that got locked in a castle in Age of Ultron. By specifying a precise version of your fiction, you can work with the elements that support your magick while largely ignoring the problematic bits.

It is possible to take version control too far. One of the biggest benefits of working with pop culture magick is the vast amount of energy that pop culture media possesses by virtue of other fans and the general public. When you choose a particular version of a piece of media you can cut off your access to some of the energy that the rest of that media contains. If you only want to work with a version of a tv character that appeared in one episode (think dream, bespelled, or hallucinated versions of characters), you’re not going to have access to the vast energetic stores of the normal version of that character. Rather you’ll only have access to the energy invested by the creators and fans in that particular slice of the character - and not everyone will love it as much as you do. While potentially limiting, strict version control allows a practitioner to work with whatever aspects of pop culture that truly resonate with them, even when it’s problematic.

A more extreme form of version control would be to choose a slice of pop culture fiction and customise it through your own creative works, e.g. fanfiction, fanart, mental storytelling, etc. We all have certain stories we wish had gone differently or characters we’d have liked to see make different decisions. If you want to do magick with one of these alternate (AU) version of a story or character you absolutely can. By writing out or just imagining alternate stories for your favorite character or world you can, in essence, create a thoughtform of that alternative and work with it magickally. The more you flesh out and work with your AU the more energy will be woven into it and thus be available for further workings. This carries the same limitations of mass media energy as working with very specific versions of characters and stories. However, if you write fanfiction or create fanart you have the ability to share it with other fans and potentially pick up the energy they put into your works. Further, the ease inherent in working with (mostly) your own creation can outweigh the lack of mass fan energy in terms of magickal efficiency. This form of pop culture magick is limited only by your own imagination and willingness to work outside the box.

The next time your favorite bit of pop culture media makes a change for the worse, fear not! Take a deep breath, calm your mind, decide which version of that media you want to work with and, at least as far as your magickal practice is concerned, ignore the rest of it. Allow strict version control or the creation of your own alternate storyline to fuel your workings with just the energy you need and none of the angst you don’t. If what truly resonates with you is pre-movie Galen Erso, young Scrooge McDuck, Dark Willow, or movie Rainbow Brite then that’s exactly what you should do. Your magick is just that: yours.

Recently I've been watching the second season of the Crown on Netflix. One of the things I've really enjoyed about the series is how the show explores the concepts of identity and role and makes clear the distinct difference between identity and role. A little further down, Ill use the show to demonstrate what these differences are, but let's take a moment and consider what each of these terms has to do with magic.

In some magical practices, people can choose to take on a particular role that they use to embody their connection to magic. An example would be coming up with a magical name. The magical name serves the process of assuming the role that the name represents. When a person uses their magical name they are choosing to make that role prominent in the moment they are in.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a particularly large rock for the last month you’re probably aware that the USA is in the process of setting itself on fire. Regardless of your political ideologies, chances are good that you feel pretty threatened these days due to the escalating violence that seems to be everywhere. We’ve gone beyond the point of “someone should do something about this.” We’ve officially reached “I need to do something about this.” It’s time for us to put on our big kid pants and actually do something about the state of the world.

In good times it’s usually enough to do subtle magicks to gently influence the state of the world, but we are not facing good times. In troubled times we need to do everything in our power to make a difference because no one else is going to do it for us. The most effective way to use your magick to actually affect the state of the world is to enhance your mundane actions. Unless you’re the Sorcerer Supreme (and maybe even if you are) magick alone is just not going to cut it. There is so much energy being thrown by all sides of the current political situation that the only way to cut through it is with mundane action enhanced by magickal action. We need to do both. Thankfully there are a lot of ways we can do this, particularly using pop culture magick.

Pop culture magick is particularly well suited for adding weight to our mundane actions. Characters like Captain America and Superman are already rooted both in popular consciousness and the American cultural identity. We don’t need to struggle in our magicks to find a sympathetic resonance with our goals of boosting truth, justice, and the “American way” because they’re already there. Our pop culture heroes are famous for making a difference in hard times, making them near perfect allies in these times. Further, because they are so rooted in our culture means that they already energetically touch just about everyone that we might want to affect with our magick, making hitting our targets that much easier. We don’t have to bring our pop culture magick to the mundane plain because it’s already there, ready to help us make a difference.

As with any situation, change has to start with you. For many of us the most difficult step in making a difference is the first one: getting off our couches and actually doing something. This is where you can do workings with characters like the Hulk, Princess Leia, or Mulan to use your anger and defensive emotions as a catalyst for taking action. Use the energies of righteous defenders like the Federation (Star Trek) or the Shadow Proclamation (Doctor Who) to motivate yourself into taking direct action like protesting and calling your local legislators. One of the most effective things you can do to actively change the way things are going is to phone your senators and representatives. You can boost the effectiveness of these communications by invoking righteous and persuasive characters like Superman, Captain America, and Aslan and letting their energies help you to make your voice heard. (If you have anxiety about calling your reps here’s a great article on making things easier on yourself) If you’re really uncomfortable calling your senators and representatives you can also email or write them a letter (though this tends not to be quite as effective as calling, it’s better than not making yourself heard at all). Use the courage, determination, and persuasiveness of your favorite pop culture icons to make your voice boom.

Another great way to boost your ability to make a difference is to enchant donations as you make them. Whether you’re sending firewood to Standing Rock, giving canned good to food banks, or providing hygiene products to local shelters, we all want to make charitable donations stretch as far as we can. We can do so by putting everlasting gobstopper charms on food donations, casting a bag of holding charm on clothing donations, or a Wisdom of Gandalf spell on book donations. You can enhance your volunteerism by invoking the strength of Fesik (Princess Bride) or the endurance of Strider (Lord of the Rings). Use your magick to heighten the impact of your mundane actions.

You can do even more if you’re comfortable casting spells on others (do this or not according to your own ethics). One options is casting clear seeing spells for the ignorant. There are a lot of frighteningly misinformed and mentally manipulated people out there that could use a dose of clear understanding of their situation. Call on characters like Hawkeye, Superman, or Wonder Woman to part the veil of ignorance and let people see the true nature of reality. Llasso of truth anyone or perhaps a Mythbusters spell? Another option is casting personal responsibility spells for the apathetic or inactive. Call on characters like Tony Stark or Buffy the Vampire Slayer to bring the full weight of personal responsibility on the indifferent. (See my July Boondock Saints spell against indifference) You can even take it so far as to cast guilt spells upon the perpetrators of injustice. Given the season, using the three ghosts of Christmas from The Christmas Carol seems terribly appropriate. The possibilities are endless.

It doesn’t matter what action you choose to take in these times, so long as you do choose to act. The current political situation in the US has seen an unprecedented rise in violence against anyone viewed as “other” and we are all “other” in some way. This is not the time to “wait and see,” it’s time to take a stand before things get even more out of hand. Inaction in times like these is effectively endorsing bigotry, hatred, and fascism. Be brave and make a difference.

A Pagan writer considers how magic and the occult has seeped its way into pop culture. The TV adaptation of American Gods adds another deity to its roster. And a look at how the new movie Doctor Strange differs from its source material. It's Airy Monday, our weekly segment on magic and religion in pop culture. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Into every life a little rain must fall. Unfortunately, sometimes that little bit of rain becomes a deluge or tsunami. Some of us aren’t exactly chipper little rays of sunshine to begin with, so life’s little stumbles can make things more challenging than they really need to be. I’ve battled functional depression for as long as I can remember and there are few things that I take more refuge and comfort in than my pop culture fandoms. For people like me fandom is a lot more than a fun way to spend your time; it’s an escape from the pressures of the mundane and a protected retreat. It’s the ultimate safe space where you are free to let all your weirdness hang out and just enjoy yourself. The power of pop culture magick is to allow us to literally bottle a bit of that joy and take it with us.

For this spell you will need to choose a favorite fandom or two. There are an amazing number of pop culture fandoms out there, so choosing just one or two to work with can be a bit daunting. Think about what is resonating with you right now. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had a favorite fandom for the past decade - what book, movie, music, tv show, series, comic, manga, etc., really resonates with you right now. What bit of pop culture brings you joy today.

Think of a character, scenario, episode, song, etc., from your chosen fandom that really makes you happy. For example, I’m doing my version of this spell using Firefly, particularly the character of Kaylee. In a cast of misfits and anti-heroes Kaylee stands out as being not only a kick-ass mechanic, but as being genuinely sweet and happy more often than not. I greatly admire her ability to look on the bright side of things and enjoy what she has while she has it - something I’m not great at.

Ingredients:

One candle (in your favorite color) - pure beeswax is best, as the honey in the wax adds a bit of sweetening to the spell. If you choose a large candle you should repeat the incantation each time you burn it. If you cannot burn a candle for whatever reason, choose a tealight or small chime candle that you can carry with you.

One wearable/carryable object representing your bit of pop culture - if you have something overt like a fandom t-shirt great, if not something as simple as a sigil drawn on a piece of paper will do.

One small bottle of drinkable liquid - This can be tap water or anything else, just be sure the bottle seals well enough for you to carry it in a pocket without worrying about leakage.

Ground, center, and set your sacred space however you usually do. (If you don’t usually do those things that’s ok too!)

Set your candle on your altar or whatever prepared space you have. Set your wearable object (a leather bracelet for me) and your bottle of liquid next to the candle. If your bit of pop culture has a video or audio form, play it in the background. Meditate for a few minutes on your bit of fandom and what about it brings you joy.

Light your candle (or not) and speak an incantation like the following, with the specifics changed for your fandom and your personal needs:

Light of flame bring me joy, allow me the happiness and good nature of Kaylee.I will overcome my obstacles with a smile, as she does.I will enjoy the good that flows into my life, as she does.I will find solace and comfort in hard times and emerge the stronger for it.I will shed bitterness and resentment, as she does.I release negativity and depression.I find joy in everyday life and dance with joy.

Let the essence of happiness flow into my bracelet and my tonic. In times of sorrow, stress, anxiety, or fear I will wear my bracelet, sip my tonic, and find happiness. I embrace joy.So must it be.

Let the candle burn down, then close your sacred space as you usually do. Carry/wear your charged object and sip your charged liquid when you need a boost. Feel free to repeat the spell as often as necessary.

When I started watching The Path on Hulu the other day I was not expecting to get smacked right in my Pagan Community feels. Yes, I know The Path is about a cult rather than about Pagans, however it is filled with the dynamics of a small, insular, religious community and that is very, very relevant to our interests. I’ve been a part of many healthy and less than healthy Pagan groups and I think we can all benefit from stepping back for a minute and looking at some of the the issues raised in The Path.

***This article will contain spoilers for The Path episodes 1-7***

The first thing that really got me while watching The Path (within minutes) was the issue of super special secret teachings that will lead to happiness/enlightenment/personal power/etc. that are only revealed once someone get’s to the highest levels of initiation - once they’re far too invested to walk away if they’re disappointed. This is possibly my biggest issue with large chunks of the magickal community and the mystery traditions of Paganism. In The Path the cult that is at the center of the story is the Meyerist Movement. Their teachings are called The Ladder and as people are initiated into the group they move up the ten rungs of The Ladder (one being the lowest, ten being the highest). As people move up The Ladder more of the group’s secrets are revealed, with the promise that the highest rungs will hold the secrets to true happiness - the only problem is that the highest rungs haven’t actually been created yet and the group’s founder is dying and in a coma. No magickal group has ever promised higher levels of secret teachings that they haven’t actually written yet - right? I was part of a well meaning group that basically did a less horrendous version of exactly this. I do respect mystery traditions to a certain extent. Yes, there are religious and magickal mysteries that require a seeker to have certain trainings under their belts in order to make sense of them safely and fully. However, before I get involved in a group I want to know what I’m getting myself into. If there are super special secrets that are essentially my reward for doing the lower levels, I want to know what they are (at least enough to decided if they’re worth it). However, having questions answered with a dismissive, “well, you’re not a high enough level for those teachings to be revealed” feels a lot like an adult dismissing a child with, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” That kind of condescension triggers all kinds of not-so-fun memories for me. Further, I feel like a lot of groups use higher level teachings as a lure to get and keep members, rather than having them be the genuine tools for growth they’re meant to be. I don’t want my Pagan groups promising me the secrets of enlightenment of the low low price of just four installments of $19.95 or the attendance of ten meetings and endless potlucks. This behavior isn’t true of all groups certainly, but it’s common enough to be a problem.

An issue from The Path that grabbed me right from the get go is the cult of personality. Many Pagan and magickal groups are founded by a charismatic leader that has the ability to bring people to their work through the sheer magnetism of their own personality and power. Sometimes that leader is so charismatic that a well-meaning spiritual or magickal group becomes little more than a cult of personality - doing whatever the leader says just because the leader says so. In The Path we have the character of Cal, the groundroots leader of the Meyerist movement. Cal has the wonderful gift of being able to make anyone feel special, recognized, and valued - an invaluable skill for any leader. However, it leads to people doing pretty much anything he says just because it’s him saying it, regardless of whether it’s really the right thing to do. I’ve seen plenty of groups where the members blindly follow a leader’s direction long past the point of that leader’s actual ability to lead. The point of religious/spiritual/magickal groups, in my opinion at least, is to further personal growth and create community, not just follow a leader like ducklings. No leader is infallible and no human is perfect. In fact, plenty of charismatic leaders get a little drunk off their own power over people and fall to the temptation to abuse it. Cal is a wonderful example of a leader who gets caught in his own propaganda and starts to act like he can do anything just because of his position - and people let him get away with it to a shocking extent. Even the most benevolent of leaders can fall to the temptation to just “shade” their words in a way that will get people to come around to their way of thinking, particularly if they can tell themselves it’s for the people’s “own good.” I know I have a time or two (fortunately I had people call me on it so I could correct myself). Sadly, there are plenty of less than virtuous folks out there just waiting for people to fall into their sphere of influence. The Path reminds us just how very easy it is to manipulate people if you’re in a place of spiritual power over them. Anyone who’s ever led a group will see shades of themselves in Cal (and if you don’t you are probably lying to yourself).

Another issue that hit very close to home for me was the issue of prioritizing the structures of a community versus the personal growth of community members. There comes a time for every well-established group where the leadership of that group becomes so invested in the structures/traditions they have created that they lose sight of why those structures were created in the first place. In The Path there are very specific sets of procedures that people must go through in order to advance their spiritual development. Those procedures were created by the movement’s founder and are virtually sacrosanct. Very early on in the show the main character, Eddie, is falsely accused of infidelity and is forced to go through what amounts to mental reprogramming to “unburden” himself. It is not a pleasant process. However, because the Meyerist community is so invested in the methods they’ve established to “help” people they never stop to ask whether or not they’re really necessary or if there might be another way of doing things. Further, while the process makes the community feel like it’s doing “good work” it completely emotionally eviscerates the individual undergoing it - stunting his own personal growth. In a much more extreme example, in Episode 7 we see Cal confronted with an extreme threat to the Meyerist community as he knows it and he takes even more extreme measures to eliminate that threat - not because the threat was invalid or wrong but because it was dangerous to the structures and institutions that made his life comfortable, predictable and gave him power. I’ve seen plenty of groups where traditions were held so dear that they were held onto long past the point of them being helpful or even healthy. It’s perfectly natural and understandable for people to feel protective of and invested in the structures they’ve created and nurtured over time. However, it is critical for any group/community member, especially those in leadership positions, to remember that structures and processes are created for a reason and once they cease to serve their purpose it’s time to come up with a new process. Respectfully asking “why” is critical to the health of any group. People change over time, communities change over time, the world changes over time and so must the process, structures, institutions, and traditions that we love or they will lose all meaning and fall to dust.

Turns out that spiritual/religious groups all seem to have the same issues of secret keeping, leadership, and ossified structures. In The Path we see these issues writ large in a “worst case” scenario of a group straddling the line between a religious movement and a cult with a leader slowly losing control. While the problems faced by most Pagan/magickal groups are less extreme (at least I hope so), we can still learn a lot from The Path. What secrets does your group hold and why? Are your leaders serving your group or are they lording over you? Do your traditions still make sense? Take some time and really think about how your group and the groups you’ve dealt with in the past take on these issues. Ask yourself if your group is dealing with its issues in a healthy and productive manner or if personality issues and protectionism and fear are fighting for the status quo. When our communities are healthy we all benefit and we all suffer when they’re rotting from within.

I've always been fascinated in the predictive aspects of pop culture. Recently I watched the latest season of House of Cards and found that it eerily predicted some of what was happening in the current political climate. Even the actors of the show noticed those same parallels. Such predictive aspects aren't limited to the latest T.V. shows. Jules Verne wrote about submarines before the first one was invented. In various fiction books, games, and shows you end up finding that pop culture is predictive of something that shows up in our lives down the line.

I think that what pop culture really does is orient the consciousness of people toward manifesting what it shows. So it's not even so much of a predictive function so much as it plants a seed in your mind and if that seed is planted in many many minds than it makes an imprint on the superconsciousness of humanity and from there finds its way to someone who can create it.